Auto auctions play a major role as a wholesale market for second-hand vehicles. Most auto auctions are closed auctions, meaning only dealers can use them. There are also auctions that are open to the public. These auctions are a primary outlet for financial services firms to dispose of their large volume of off-lease returns, for rental and other companies to sell off their aging fleets, and for car dealerships to dump trade-ins or other unwanted inventory. Some auctions are used by banks, the Internal Revenue Service, and other government agencies to sell vehicles that were repossessed for failure to make monthly payments or pay taxes, or were seized by the government agencies, or the police. Auctions are also used to sell U.S. Government vehicles.
Online auto auctions have also been growing in popularity. One of the most popular online auctions to buy vehicles from is eBay™. On eBay Motors™, a user can create an account and put their vehicles up for auction. Other popular websites include Cars.com™. Typically, online vehicle sales are based solely on images of the vehicle, since the buyer is in a remote location and is unable to view the vehicle in question in person. Thus, many high quality images are required of the vehicle from many perspectives to allow a buyer to gain an understanding of a subject vehicles condition and appearance. FIGS. 1A and 1B are typical non-studio quality vehicle photographs that are used to list vehicles for sale. The images shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B are of low quality and require a dedicated employee to move vehicles and physically move around the subject vehicle to take the pictures. The photographer also has to manually collate the images, name, and upload the files, which is a labor intensive and time consuming task, considering one photographer may be required to shoot upwards of 75 vehicles a day.
Furthermore, producing high quality images is not only time consuming, but is costly and requires a studio set up. Vehicle images are particularly hard to obtain without unwanted reflections of the photographer or the surroundings; however reflection free images are critical to be able to discern surface imperfections, scratches, and dents on a vehicle surface. FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate an existing studio configuration 10 for generating a contrast break line 12 on a vehicle with additive lighting. The bottom edge 16 of a light box 14 creates the break line 12 between highlight and shadow. FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate an existing studio configuration 20 for generating a contrast break line 12 on a vehicle with subtractive lighting. The bounce fill light is a large source and makes a soft reflection in the sheet metal. A gray wall is added to “subtract” the reflection from the lower half of the truck to create contrast and shape.
While these studio shots are effective in creating high quality vehicle images, the studio shots are not amenable to the high throughput required for high volume vehicle sales. Thus there is a need to be able to rapidly produce high quality reflection free images of vehicles from multiple angles and perspectives.